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Penrhyn Castle is a country house in the form of a neo-Norman castle and sits between Snowdonia and the Menai Strait. It was originally a mediaeval fortified manor house and in 1438 a licence was granted to crenelllate and a stone castle was built and a tower house added. It was then reconstructed in the 1780's. Today's house/castle was built between 1820 and 1845 by Thomas Hopper for the wealthy Pennant family, who made their fortune from Jamaican sugar and Welsh slate in the local slate quarries. At this time it was expanded and considerably transformed and of the original structure only a spiral staircase can be seen, while a vaulted basement and other masonry were incorporated into the new structure. It is crammed with items such as a one-ton slate bed made for Queen Victoria when she visited in 1859. Hopper also designed the castle's interior which has elaborate carvings, plasterwork and mock-Norman furniture as well as a collection of paintings. A notable feature of the building is it's hot-air heating system and water closets. In 1951 the castle and 40,000 acres were accepted by the Treasury in lieu of death duties and it now is in the hands of the National Trust.
The Victorian kitchen and other servants' rooms, including scullery, larders and chef's sitting room, have been restored to reveal the preparations for the banquet for the Prince of Wales's visit in 1894. The stable block houses an industrial railway museum, a model railway museum and a dolls' museum displaying a large collection of 19th- and 20th-century dolls, around 1,000 of them. The parkland covers 60 acres and includes an exotic tree and shrub collection and a formal Victorian walled garden which includes a fuchsia arch, and it has views over the Snowdonia mountains. For the Children there is also a play area and children's quiz/trail.
Note: The main entrance into the Castle grounds is off the roundabout in Llandygai off the A5122. However if you take the road off this roundabout towards Tan-Y-lon and take the first left to a nature reserve, you can get a view of the castle from the nature reserve. This is a narrow track road and ends at the nature reserve car park, where you can turn round to get back. You can also see the top of the castle when you are travelling along the A55.
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